


What’s in a name?

by crackinthecup



Series: Ends and Beginnings [7]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Blood and Injury, Choking, Cutting, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Ownership, Paranoia, Scarification, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, or: mairon gets a tramp stamp and the experience is harrowing for everyone involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26580205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup
Summary: Mairon cursed the damn jewels upon Melkor’s brow and their unrelenting light; he cursed the Valar for imprisoning his master and he cursed Ungoliant for maiming him. Melkor had returned to him from beyond the Sea like a husk of a god, a vessel filled with less holiness than hatred.Since his return from Valinor, Melkor has been cold and distant, more ruthless than ever before. When Mairon makes a suggestion during a council meeting, Melkor sees treachery where none was intended and decides on a lasting way to make Mairon’s place clear: putting his name on Mairon’s body.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Series: Ends and Beginnings [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112774
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	What’s in a name?

Melkor did not shout.

Later, Mairon thought he would have preferred it if he had.

He understood Melkor’s rages, outbursts as sudden and cataclysmic as lava spewing forth from the belly of the earth. He knew the clockwork rhythm of them, wrath that was predictable in its unpredictability. He knew how to withstand them, too, bear the brunt of Melkor’s anger until it was spent and both he and his master could return to the easy intimacy that had grown between them over the years.

It stung his pride to cast his eyes to the ground in deference as Melkor’s words poured over him like acid, to bite back every gasp and groan and scream as Melkor took a whip to his back or forced his thighs to spread in violence. It eroded whatever softness was still left in the core of him, but he could endure it. He was his master’s lieutenant. It was his duty to serve him in this as in all other things.

Lately, however, things had been different.

“I strongly suggest we send an embassy to the Noldor with an offer of parley to avoid further loss of life,” Mairon was saying, concluding the lengthy discussion that the council members had been having for most of the meeting. “Do you agree, my lord?”

Melkor did not look at him. He was staring straight ahead, eyes dark and distant as though beholding a tragedy that only he could see.

When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from far away.

“Get out.”

There was a pause among the council members—it made little sense for their lord to dismiss them so abruptly just as they had reached a pivotal point in the meeting. But no one would have dared to gainsay Melkor even in Utumno when his moods were less cruel. Ever since his return from Valinor, a void seemed to have opened up in the fabric of his being, a cold, dark, hungry place where his fire used to be. It made him sharp, it made him ruthless. Now, anything but blind obedience was deemed suicidal.

One by one, Orcs and Balrogs and Maiar began to file out of the council chamber. Without letting his annoyance show on his face, Mairon gathered up the reports spread out across the table in front of him and moved to follow suit.

“Not you, lieutenant.”

At Melkor’s command, Mairon came to a halt just short of the door. Gothmog had been lumbering up ahead of him, and now he turned in the doorway, casting a worried look in Mairon’s direction. Mairon met his concern with a blank expression. He still bore the bruises from the last time Melkor had ordered him to stay after a council meeting, and Gothmog knew it well. Almost imperceptibly, Mairon nodded at his friend.

With a last lingering glance at Mairon, Gothmog turned away. “M’lord,” he said in a curt military salute directed at Melkor, then closed the door behind him.

Melkor and Mairon were alone.

Mairon spun on his heel. “What can I do for you, my lord?” he asked with a stiff smile.

Melkor leaned back in his chair, draping an arm over its back as he pinned Mairon with a withering stare. “What you would _do_ , it seems, if you had your way, is run into the arms of the Elf-scum and parley with them.”

Mairon’s stomach dropped, fast as a boulder. “Tactically speaking—”

“ _Silence_ ,” Melkor snapped, his voice thrown in preternatural echoes around the chamber, seeming to grate against the inside of Mairon’s skull. “There will be no parley. Arda is _mine_. The Elf-scum will come crawling before my throne and beg for my forgiveness or they will die.” Melkor’s voice dropped, low and hateful. “I did not expect such treachery from you, lieutenant. It seems I am beset by enemies not only outside my fortress but within as well.”

Sorrow swelled up in Mairon’s chest like a howling wave. He took one step forward and then another and another, ignoring the way Melkor’s gaze seemed to burn right through his skin to the blood and bone underneath. He dropped to his knees at Melkor’s feet.

“It is no treachery, my lord,” Mairon said, speaking the words to Melkor’s boots, quiet and honest. “My suggestion was based on an objective analysis of our present circumstances, nothing more—”

One of Melkor’s hands shot out, grabbing a fistful of Mairon’s hair, shaking him as though he were a disobedient dog. Whatever else Mairon had meant to say was lost in a whimper of pain.

“You talk too much,” Melkor snarled at him; giving Mairon one last violent shake, he unhanded him, standing up, leaving him on his knees with a dull ache pounding over his scalp.

Melkor flexed his fingers as though they pained him, and Mairon caught himself thinking that of course they did; he knew what lay beneath the gloves that Melkor wore, he had seen the skin underneath left black and hurting. Mairon closed his eyes, breathing through the grief that pierced his heart like a weapon of war. He knew he should be furious with Melkor for treating him like this, but he simply could not bring himself to rail against his master. He thought of fate and circumstance, love and duty, the vastness of the world. It was never meant to be like this.

“Get up,” Melkor commanded, and slowly Mairon complied, getting to his feet and standing before his master with practiced impassivity.

He did not see the slap coming. He had always been able to tell when Melkor intended to hurt him by the twist of anger on his face, the sadistic spark in his eyes. But now there was nothing; Melkor might as well have been wearing a mask.

Something in Mairon’s neck crunched with the force of the blow as his head jerked to the side. Blood spurted from his nose to drip over his lips and chin, and instinctively Mairon took a step back. He made to bring up a hand to wipe away the blood.

He could not move a muscle before Melkor stalked forwards and grabbed him by the throat. His air was cut off, completely, as if he had never had the privilege of breathing in the first place. He could feel his blood thundering through the arteries crushed beneath Melkor’s fingers. He wrapped a hand around Melkor’s wrist, trying to pull his hand away with all the force he could muster, but it was like fighting a mountain. Melkor did not budge; instead, he squeezed harder and harder until dozens of tiny lights burst and fizzed across Mairon’s vision.

“I have been lenient with you, Mairon,” Melkor began in a voice like grinding ice. “I have indulged your boldness, I have nurtured your talents, and you think to repay my regard by conspiring against me. What would you offer the Elf-scum in exchange for their surrender? My lands? My crown? My head so you could take the throne and preserve your pitiful semblance of peace?”

It was not true, _it was not true_ , and Mairon cursed the damn jewels upon Melkor’s brow and their unrelenting light; he cursed the Valar for imprisoning his master and he cursed Ungoliant for maiming him. Melkor had returned to him from beyond the Sea like a husk of a god, a vessel filled with less holiness than hatred.

“N-never,” Mairon rasped, forcing the words out with what little breath he still had in his lungs.

With his hand still wrapped around his throat, Melkor marched him backwards until his back hit the wall. He held him there for what felt like hours, so long that Mairon’s consciousness began to tumble away. At the last second, Melkor relaxed his grip, leaning in close as Mairon sucked in a few desperate breaths.

“Liar,” Melkor breathed against the shell of his ear.

Mairon felt his blood run cold. “My lord, please listen to me...” he said softly, earnestly, but Melkor shushed him, releasing his throat to cup his bruised cheek in the palm of his hand.

Though the touch was gentle, Mairon could not suppress the instinct to shrink away. He remembered a time when Melkor would have commented on it, thrown a snide remark his way or smirked at him in cruel delight. Now, Melkor did not even seem to notice. In silence he ran his thumb through the blood dripping from Mairon’s nose, sliding it past his lips, stroking the nauseating, metallic taste far back along his tongue. And then, hooking his thumb behind Mairon’s teeth so he had no choice but to open wider, he spat into his mouth. A strangled noise of revulsion bled from Mairon’s throat. Melkor let his thumb slip out of his mouth, watching with an unreadable expression as Mairon swallowed the spit and his own blood. Then he unceremoniously threw him to the floor, so hard that the impact jarred through his bones.

Mairon made to haul himself upwards into a kneeling position, but a vicious kick to his ribs arrested all movement. He choked as brilliant, blinding pain shot through him. He rolled onto his side, protectively clutching at his throbbing ribcage, breathing hard.

Amid the pain he felt Melkor’s power gathering like a storm cloud in the air above him. It descended upon him like dozens of probing hands, pressing him to the floor, slithering beneath his clothes, burrowing into his veins; it engulfed him, it desecrated him. His own power instinctively flared up against the intrusion, bursting into life in the core of him, slamming against Melkor’s own in fiery radiance.

“Do not fight me,” Melkor’s words rang out from above him; with a sickening rush, the assault on Mairon intensified tenfold. “You will not win.”

Like a candle snuffed out in the wind, Mairon’s power broke under his master’s onslaught. His mind was laid bare to that ravenous, searching will, and it felt like his skull had been sawn in half and he screamed or he thought that he screamed and he scratched like a wild thing at his head and he felt sure that nothing but insanity awaited him if he got through this alive.

Abruptly it was over. Melkor’s power withdrew from him. He was left alone on the floor, shivering and drenched in a cold sweat. He screwed his eyes tightly shut.

“You did not lie.” Melkor’s voice washed over him. He sounded tired. His words floated in and out of Mairon’s awareness like ghosts, and Mairon had to make a conscious effort to grasp their meaning.

“I would never lie to you,” he mumbled weakly. Something in the core of him ached, like a blade skewered through his innards that twisted and twisted and _twisted_. “I have been loyal to you all these years, my lord, please—”

But Melkor was not listening. He hauled him to his feet with a grip little bitter steel around his upper arm, roughly shoving him towards the table in the centre of the room. Mairon’s side collided with the edge of the table and he slumped over it, sore and winded.

“You are sworn to me, Mairon. Remember that next time you presume to advise me on military matters. Remember that your duty is to my cause,” Melkor told him, and if Mairon had been less hurt, he might have laughed; Melkor spoke to him as though lecturing a naughty child.

With a word of power from Melkor, the stone surface of the table began to twist and writhe, rising up and moulding itself to Mairon’s wrists like manacles. Mairon forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath.

Melkor took hold of the collar of his shirt and ripped the fabric apart with nauseating force, leaving the tatters to hang off his exposed back. He then stalked away from where Mairon was bent over the table. The walls of the council chamber were lined with ceremonial weapons, and Mairon recognised the dagger that Melkor lifted from its hooks. He himself had made it, a curved knife tapering to a wicked point, its hilt cast in glittering gold and inlaid with fiery opals.

“Let this serve as a reminder of your place,” Melkor said as he returned to stand behind him, the tip of the dagger poised against his lower back.

Mairon could not bring himself to protest.

The blade was so sharp that it did not hurt when Melkor made the first cut, a long vertical line carved to the left of his spine. But then blood gushed out, spilling hot over his skin, and the cut began to _sting_ , and still Melkor cut into him with all the perverse patience he reserved for matters of the flesh.

“You belong to me,” Melkor murmured, almost to himself, slowly making three more incisions until he had cut a narrow rectangular outline into Mairon’s lower back; he then dug the tip of the dagger beneath the skin at the centre of the outline, slicing off a thick layer of it. “You are bound to me. You will share in my fate.”

Melkor was carving his name into his skin, Mairon soon realised. The metal of the blade hummed with power, Melkor’s power, seeping underneath Mairon’s skin and binding it to his master’s will. The cuts would heal, but they would scar and the scars would be indelible.

Mairon let out a slow, shuddering breath. The realisation did not frighten him, it did not repulse him. This was just a physical counterpart to what he already knew in the fiery core of his spirit: he was Melkor’s; that allegiance had been given willingly, and though many things had changed since then, many more than Mairon had ever anticipated, he would never turn his back on it.

He only wished that Melkor could see that too.

Mairon lost track of time as he lay there. Again and again his skin parted under the tip of the knife, blood dripping down to soak into his leggings and smear over the surface of the table. He endured it in silence: his cheeks dry, his eyes closed.

Eventually Melkor set the dagger aside.

“Everything I do is in your name,” Mairon heard himself saying, the words tinged with such sorrow that he barely recognised his own voice; _let Melkor know_ , he thought fiercely, _let him feel something that isn’t this senseless hate_. “You can hurt me if you judge that I have done wrong. You can accuse me of stupidity if my advice displeases you. But I swear to you that I would not betray you, not now, not _ever_. Let me be cast out of this body and exiled from this earth if I ever break your trust.”

The silence was so complete that for one absurd moment Mairon felt like he was talking to a corpse. He held his breath. 

“I will hold you to that,” Melkor replied in an empty voice, sliding his fingers over the fresh wounds across Mairon’s lower back; one of the cuts caught on Melkor’s rough skin, and Mairon realised he had taken his gloves off.

If feelings could manifest in flesh, Mairon was sure that his chest would break clean in half.

All of a sudden Melkor seemed to lose interest in Mairon altogether. He returned to his seat at the head of the table and sat down with a heavy sigh.

“Leave me,” he said, snapping his fingers so that the manacles around Mairon’s wrists melted back into the table.

Down to the smallest particles of his being Mairon longed to cross the distance between them, take his master into his arms, make a million vows and take a million hurts if only this cold, hollow, distrustful _loneliness_ would be purged from Melkor’s heart.

He did not.

He bowed low, then left the council chamber with his head held high and each letter in Melkor’s name burning like a naked flame across his lower back.


End file.
